Harm Reduction Summit 2026 – Free Training for Therapy Professionals
Working with substance use can become difficult when traditional treatment assumptions collide with the complicated realities people bring into therapy.
The Harm Reduction Summit brings clinicians, advocates, researchers, authors, and community leaders together for a deeper look at addiction, trauma, harm reduction psychotherapy, public health, drug policy, and the lived realities surrounding substance use.
Hosted by Andrew Tatarsky, PhD and Academy of Therapy Wisdom, the five-day event explores a more collaborative approach to positive change: meeting people where they are, understanding what a behavior may be doing for them, reducing immediate harm, and building therapeutic relationships grounded in dignity and curiosity rather than shame.
Across the summit, you can explore both clinical and community perspectives, from neuroscience, attachment, and trauma to psychedelic harm reduction, racial justice, overdose prevention, drug policy reform, and the future of the harm reduction movement.
Why Attend The Harm Reduction Summit
Substance use rarely fits into a simple story about motivation or willpower. Trauma, attachment, emotional pain, relationships, social conditions, stigma, and survival can all shape why a person uses substances and what kind of support is realistically possible.
The Harm Reduction Summit examines what changes when clinicians move away from judgment, confrontation, and one-size-fits-all expectations and instead begin with curiosity about the person and the function of the behavior. The five-day curriculum brings together perspectives from psychotherapy, neuroscience, public health, lived experience, advocacy, policy, and community harm reduction.
The result is a broad educational experience for professionals who want to think more carefully about addiction and positive change. Rather than reducing harm reduction to one technique or treatment goal, the summit explores it as a clinical, relational, public-health, and human-rights framework.
Who Should Attend the 2026 Harm Reduction Summit
This summit is especially relevant for therapists and other helping professionals who encounter substance use, addiction, trauma, compulsive behavior, or ambivalence about change in their work. Addiction does not need to be the primary focus of your practice for the conversations to be useful.
The wider curriculum also makes the event relevant to people interested in public health, community-based harm reduction, drug policy, overdose prevention, racial and social justice, psychedelic harm reduction, and more humane systems of care.
- Psychotherapists who work with substance use, trauma, or compulsive behavior
- Counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other behavioral health professionals
- Addiction professionals seeking alternatives to rigid one-size-fits-all models
- Clinicians who want to work more effectively with ambivalence and varied change goals
- Professionals interested in trauma-informed and relationship-centered care
- People working in community harm reduction and overdose prevention
- Advocates interested in drug policy, stigma, racial justice, and human rights
- Clinicians exploring psychedelic harm reduction and integration
What You’ll Learn During The Harm Reduction Summit
The summit begins by reconsidering familiar assumptions about addiction and asking how suffering, learning, attachment, trauma, and social context can influence substance use. From there, the curriculum moves into the practice of harm reduction psychotherapy and the conditions that can support positive change.
You will also hear directly from community leaders and advocates whose work connects harm reduction with overdose prevention, dignity, lived experience, racial justice, public health, drug policy, and human rights. These perspectives broaden the conversation beyond the therapy room.
The final sessions look toward the future, including the continued expansion of harm reduction in psychotherapy, community care, social systems, and psychedelic integration. The emphasis throughout is educational: developing a more nuanced framework for understanding people and considering how these principles may inform professional practice.
- Why substance use can function as an adaptation to pain, distress, trauma, or disconnection
- How harm reduction differs from approaches that require one predetermined recovery goal
- Why safety, trust, dignity, curiosity, and collaboration matter in therapeutic relationships
- How trauma, attachment, neuroscience, and emotional regulation can inform understanding of substance use
- Ways harm reduction psychotherapy supports individualized goals and positive change
- What frontline community programs can teach clinicians about meeting people where they are
- How stigma, racism, criminalization, and social inequality affect people who use drugs
- How public health and drug policy have shaped the international harm reduction movement
- How psychedelic harm reduction emphasizes preparation, psychological safety, and thoughtful integration
- How the field is expanding across psychotherapy, advocacy, public health, and community care
Meeting People Where They Are Through Harm Reduction
A central principle running through the summit is that meaningful support can begin before a person is ready, willing, or able to pursue abstinence. Harm reduction makes room for individualized goals that may include reducing risk, changing patterns of use, moderation, abstinence, or other forms of positive change.
Andrew Tatarsky developed Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy, or IHRP, as a psychologically informed approach that combines a harm reduction framework with relational, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, mindfulness, and other therapeutic perspectives. The work emphasizes understanding each person’s unique relationship with substances rather than imposing a single interpretation or predetermined path.
This orientation also changes the therapeutic question. Instead of treating difficult behavior only as something to eliminate, clinicians can become curious about its meaning, function, costs, benefits, and connection to pain, survival, attachment, or attempts at emotional regulation.
- Meet people where they are rather than requiring readiness as a condition of care
- Support goals collaboratively instead of assuming one definition of recovery
- Understand the personal meaning and function of substance use
- Reduce immediate harms while supporting broader positive change
- Use curiosity and compassion to make honest therapeutic dialogue more possible
- Attend to trauma, relationships, mental health, and social context alongside substance use
Featured Speakers and What They Cover
The Harm Reduction Summit brings together 20 presenters whose work spans psychotherapy, journalism, trauma, public health, community services, drug policy, human rights, psychedelic integration, and the international harm reduction movement.
Maia Szalavitz — Author and Journalist
Maia Szalavitz is an award-winning journalist and author of Unbroken Brain and Undoing Drugs. Her work examines addiction through learning, development, neuroscience, social context, drug policy, and the history of the harm reduction movement.
Jan Winhall, MSW, FOT — Trauma, Addiction and the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model
Psychotherapist and educator Jan Winhall developed the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model, integrating somatic awareness, Polyvagal Theory, attachment, mindfulness, and harm reduction. Her work explores addictive and compulsive behaviors as attempts to regulate pain, threat, overwhelm, and disconnection.
Patt Denning, PhD — Harm Reduction Psychotherapy
Clinical psychologist Patt Denning is a pioneer of harm reduction psychotherapy and co-author of Over the Influence and Practicing Harm Reduction Psychotherapy. Her work supports flexible goals ranging from safer use and moderation to abstinence.
Gabor Maté, MD — Addiction, Trauma and Emotional Pain
Physician and author Gabor Maté has spent decades exploring the relationship between addiction, trauma, attachment, stress, culture, and emotional pain. His work invites a shift from moral judgment toward curiosity about the suffering underneath addictive behavior.
Sam Rivera — Frontline Harm Reduction and Overdose Prevention
Sam Rivera is Executive Director of OnPoint NYC, where harm reduction services include syringe access, peer support, health-care navigation, overdose prevention, and connections with treatment, housing, and social services. His perspective brings frontline practice and lived experience into the summit.
Tracie M. Gardner — Racial Justice and Harm Reduction Leadership
Tracie M. Gardner is founding Executive Director of the National Black Harm Reduction Network. Her work connects harm reduction with racial justice, HIV prevention, criminal justice reform, overdose prevention, drug policy, and the leadership of communities most affected by the drug war.
Ethan Nadelmann, JD, PhD — Drug Policy Reform
Ethan Nadelmann founded The Lindesmith Center and later the Drug Policy Alliance. His work has helped move conversations about drugs and addiction away from punishment and toward public health, human rights, harm reduction, and policy reform.
Sheila Vakharia, PhD, MSW — Research, Policy and the Harm Reduction Gap
Researcher, educator, and drug policy expert Sheila Vakharia works at the intersection of harm reduction, addiction treatment, research, and public policy. Her work examines people whose needs or goals may not fit conventional prevention or abstinence-only treatment systems.
Ingmar Gorman, PhD — Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Integration
Clinical psychologist Ingmar Gorman specializes in psychotherapy, trauma, substance use, psychedelic integration, and professional education. His work emphasizes preparation, psychological safety, meaning-making, and thoughtful integration in response to expanding psychedelic use.
Laura Guzman — Community Harm Reduction and Human Rights
Laura Guzman is a longtime harm reduction leader whose work has included syringe access, overdose prevention, community-based services, policy reform, and advocacy for the dignity and self-determination of people who use drugs.
Harm Reduction Summit Schedule and Daily Themes
The Harm Reduction Summit runs October 5 through October 9, 2026. Each day approaches harm reduction from a different angle, moving from foundational ways of understanding addiction into psychotherapy, community action, systems change, and the future of the field.
Day 1 — October 5: A Revolution in Understanding
Theme: Rethinking Addiction, Suffering, and Human Behavior
- Maia Szalavitz — Author and Journalist
- Liz Lacy, LCSW
- Jan Winhall, MSW, FOT
- Debbie Rothschild, PhD
Day 2 — October 6: Supporting Positive Change
Theme: The Art and Science of Harm Reduction Psychotherapy
- Kim May, LPC-S, LMFT
- Patt Denning, PhD
- Chelsea Rose, MA, LMFT
- Scott Kellogg, PhD
Day 3 — October 7: Harm Reduction in Action
Theme: Lived Experience, Community, Justice, and Dignity
- Tracie M. Gardner — Executive Director
- Shaun Shelly — Executive Director
- Sam Rivera — Executive Director
- Gabor Maté, MD
Day 4 — October 8: Changing the World
Theme: History, Policy, Public Health, and Systems Change
- Pat O’Hare — Harm Reduction Pioneer
- Ethan Nadelmann, JD, PhD
- Anton Basenko, MEC
- Sheila Vakharia, PhD, MSW
Day 5 — October 9: The Future of Harm Reduction
Theme: Expanding the Movement, the Clinical Paradigm, and the Possibilities
- Laura Guzman — NHRC Executive Director
- Ingmar Gorman, PhD
- Paulo Egenau, MSc, Psych
- Wendy Miller, PhD
Dates, Access, Replays and Where to Watch
The Harm Reduction Summit takes place online from October 5 through October 9, 2026. The five-day format gives each part of the curriculum its own focus, beginning with new ways of understanding addiction and ending with emerging directions for harm reduction.
Register for your free spot and check your email after registration for access instructions, viewing links, and schedule updates from the event organizers.
Because the program spans five days, it can help to review the themes in advance and identify the sessions most relevant to your work rather than treating every presentation as equally urgent.
How to Register for the Harm Reduction Summit
Click any Register Here For Free button on this page, enter your contact information, and check your email for access details.
How to Get the Most From the Harm Reduction Summit
A five-day professional summit can generate more ideas than you can realistically absorb at once. You may get more value by choosing a few questions you want the week to help you examine.
Use the curriculum as a progression: begin with how you conceptualize substance use, then notice how that understanding affects therapeutic relationships, practical interventions, community care, policy, and your assumptions about positive change.
1. Identify the Assumptions You Want to Examine
Before the summit, write down a few beliefs or questions you carry about addiction, readiness, relapse, motivation, abstinence, or client autonomy. Revisiting those notes later can help you recognize where your thinking has become more nuanced.
2. Follow One Clinical Thread Across the Week
- Notice how different speakers understand the function of substance use
- Track what they say about safety, trust, autonomy, and the therapeutic relationship
- Compare clinical perspectives with lived-experience and community perspectives
3. Separate Principles From Techniques
Some sessions may offer specific practices, while others challenge the assumptions underneath treatment systems. Keeping those two levels distinct can help you decide what requires further training and what can immediately inform the way you listen and think.
4. Stay Within Your Professional Scope
Use the summit for education and reflection, and apply clinical ideas within your training, licensure, competence, and professional responsibilities. Complex substance use, withdrawal, overdose risk, psychiatric conditions, and medication decisions may require specialized medical or behavioral health care.
5. Choose One Idea to Explore Further
At the end of the event, select one framework, speaker, book, research area, or clinical question for deeper study. A focused next step can be more useful than trying to incorporate every idea at once.
About Andrew Tatarsky, PhD and Academy of Therapy Wisdom
Andrew Tatarsky, PhD is a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, educator, author, and longtime leader in harm reduction psychotherapy. He has more than four decades of clinical experience and developed Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy, a flexible approach designed to meet people where they are and support individualized positive change goals.
His clinical framework integrates harm reduction with relational and psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral strategies, mindfulness, and attention to the personal and social meanings of substance use. He is the author of Harm Reduction Psychotherapy: A New Treatment for Drug and Alcohol Problems and has trained clinicians internationally in harm reduction approaches.
Tatarsky’s work emphasizes a re-humanized view of problematic substance use, including attention to trauma, mental health, relationships, autonomy, and the reasons substances may serve important functions in a person’s life. That perspective provides a natural foundation for the summit’s wider conversation about dignity, safety, curiosity, collaboration, and positive change.
Academy of Therapy Wisdom produces professional education for therapists at the intersection of psychotherapy, spirituality, and social change. For the Harm Reduction Summit, it joins Tatarsky in bringing together clinicians, researchers, advocates, community leaders, and people with deep experience in the history and practice of harm reduction.
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Register for the Harm Reduction Summit to explore five days of conversations on addiction, psychotherapy, trauma, community care, public health, drug policy, dignity, and the future of harm reduction.
- Oct 05 - 09 2026
- 8:00 am - 6:00 pm
Local Time
- Timezone: America/New_York
- Date: Oct 05 - 09 2026
- Time: 11:00 am - 9:00 pm
More Info
- Worldwide
Organizer
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The Academy of Therapy Wisdom
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Website
https://spiritualgrowthevents.com/harm-reduction-summit
